490 Dr. N. Severtzov on some 



are still more different from P. leptorhynchus than is the 

 common European P. major. 



The typical P. leptorhynchus, as well as its white-winged 

 variety, are resident the whole year in Turkestan, being only 

 somewhat migratory in winter, as are other Woodpeckers. The 

 typical form inhabits the lower forests of tree-groves of the 

 Tian-shan (being rarer in Karatau) — groves of wild apricot, 

 walnut, ash {Fraxinus), elm (Ulmus), and poplar — getting in 

 the interior as far up as the poplar grows, to about 8000 feet on 

 the Albasli, a river falling into the Naryn or Upper Syr. It is 

 also not scarce in the gardens of the cultivated zone at the 

 foot of the hills, from Turkestan north-west, and Samarkand 

 south-west, to Kuldja east. I found it particularly numerous 

 and quite common around Tashkend, where the innumerable 

 small fruit-gardens and plantations join each other so as to 

 form a sort of forest, extending for several miles. It is 

 not a shy bird, and is very similar to P. major in its manners, 

 flying from tree to tree, and then exploring each for food, 

 which consists chiefly of small bark-frequenting coleoptera 

 and their larvae, also, but, to less extent, of small tree-climb- 

 ing ants, as shown by the contents of the stomachs of the 

 birds collected. It is more shy and retiring in the breeding- 

 season. I obtained only one newly fledged young, a male, 

 to more than forty adult birds, and found no nest, either of 

 the typical or of the white-winged variety. It conceals itself 

 for breeding in May ; the young are fledged in July ; and in 

 September old and young have already the adult plumage. 



The white- winged variety was found by me in the denser 

 saxaul forests of the Lower Syr, between lany-kurgan and 

 Peroffsk, and on the lany-Darya, a river flowing (only 

 during the summer floods) from the Syr towards the Lower 

 Oxus, and on the banks of this last stream, in the north- 

 eastern parts of its delta. This variety is the single saxaul 

 Woodpecker, yet somewhat scarce and somewhat more shy 

 than the typical bird, though generally not very diflicult to 

 approach within easy shot. The white-winged Woodpecker 

 of the Tarim river-system, south of the Tian-shan range (pre- 

 cise locality unknown to me), found by Capt. Biddulph, and 



